This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in The International History Review, 34(1), 45-69, 2012 [copyright Taylor & Francis], available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07075332.2012.620239.

Protecting the Northern flank, or keeping the Cold War out of Scandinavia? British

planning and the place of Norway and Denmark in a North Atlantic pact, 1947-49

Martin H. Folly

Brunel University

Department of Politics and History

School of Social Sciences

Brunel University

Kingston Lane

Uxbridge

Middlesex UB8 3PH

United Kingdom

Phone 01895 266823

Email: martin.folly@brunel.ac.uk

1

Abstract

A pragmatic, but focused, pursuit by British policy-makers of an alliance is often regarded

as a central element in the genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty. Analysis of the issue of

Scandinavian membership shows that British policy was actually not consistent regarding

either means or ends. It was subject to internal debate, based upon conflicting assumptions

in the Oslo embassy, the Foreign Office and the armed forces. The FO’s main concern was

to provide Norway and Denmark with a sense of security so that they would take measures

against internal subversion, while the military was more concerned to prevent British

military resources being overstretchedand were prepared to accept Scandinavian neutrality:

they wished if possible to keep the Cold War out of Scandinavia. Foreign Secretary Ernest

Bevin and the FO did not believe this was possible, nor necessarily desirable, but were less

than wholehearted about Norway and Denmark joining the pact on their own. Even in early

1949, when Soviet pressure was applied to Norway, Britain was ambivalent about whether

Norway should be a founder-member of NATO. Although Britain strongly desired the

alliance for long-term gains, they worked hard to ensure the form it took worked to meet

their short-term needs.

Keywords:

Anglo-American Relations, Bevin, Chiefs of Staff, Cold War, Collier, Defence, Denmark,

Foreign Office, Hankey, Hauge, Lange, NATO, North Atlantic Treaty, Norway,

Scandinavia, Sweden, Western Union

2

Protecting the Northern flank, or keeping the Cold War out of Scandinavia?: British

planning and the place of Norway and Denmark in a North Atlantic pact, 1947-49

Martin H. Folly

A key stage in the process that culminated in the North Atlantic Treaty and the foundation

of NATO was the agreement of United States Secretary of State George Marshall to a

British proposal of secret talks on a North Atlantic security arrangement in March 1948.1

British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had gained Marshall’s attention by stressing the

vulnerability of Norway to Soviet aggression. However, for scholars of British foreign

policy or historians of NATO, this pivotal moment has always been placed in the context of

British relations with the US or Western Europe: British views of Scandinavian security at

the time are rarely subject to any detailed analysis in this historiography.2 This paper will

show that whatever the significance of the issue as the trigger for the opening of

negotiations for the North Atlantic alliance, there were considerable British reservations

with regard to incorporating Norway and Denmark in such an alliance. Analysing this issue

reveals opportunism and, at times, incoherence, in British policy and highlights the

conflicting range of aspirations and imperatives that shaped it at a time when Britain had a

crucial impact on the development of the international system.

If for historians of the North Atlantic Treaty, the Scandinavian aspect tends to slip

into the background after Bevin’s appeal to Marshall, this not the case for historians of

Scandinavian foreign relations, who discuss this period extensively. The years 1948-49 saw

a dramatic reorientation of the place of the Nordic states in world affairs. Norwegians,

Danes and Swedes argued over whether they should be involved with any western bloc, and

if so, on what terms. Scholars have debated in detail about the motivations of Sweden,

Norway and Denmark as they engaged in talks on a defence pact between May 1948 and

January 1949.3 At issue in particular are two related matters: first, whether the alliance

Sweden proposed in May 1948, ostensibly a break with a 135-year policy of isolationist

neutrality, was sincere, or merely a ruse to prevent Norway and Denmark joining an alliance

with Britain and the United States and drawing Scandinavia into the developing Cold War.

1 Lawrence S. Kaplan, NATO 1948. The Birth of the Transatlantic Alliance (Lanham, Md: Rowman and

Littlefield, 2007), 55-6. 2 The major British narrative of the Treaty negotiations, John Baylis, The Diplomacy of Pragmatism. Britain

and the Formation of NATO, 1942-49 (London: Macmillan, 1993), and the main US one, Kaplan, NATO 1948,

devote relatively little space to Scandinavian developments. 3 Gerald Aalders, ‘The Failure of Scandinavian Defence Union, 1948-1949’, Scandinavian Journal of History

xv (1990), 125-153.

3

Second, on the Norwegian side, there is much discussion as to whether there was ever a

possibility of Norway joining any pact with Sweden that prevented such an alignment to the

west. It has been suggested in some quarters that Norway’s Foreign Secretary Halvard

Lange manipulated Norwegian contacts with the west – especially those in Britain that had

been built up during wartime cooperation – to undermine the talks. Other analysts point out

that there was a range of opinions in both countries that might have made compromise

possible.4 Danish scholars have argued that Denmark, feeling particularly exposed to the

Soviet threat, saw Sweden as a more likely protector than the more distant US, and played a

key role in keeping the talks going.5 There is a general consensus that the outcome –

Norway and Denmark full members of NATO and Sweden neutral – was a consequence of

internal factors, geostrategic position and historical traditions rather than international

pressure.6

This scholarship has made much use of British sources. Britain is depicted as keenly

interested in Scandinavian security. Some scholars see Britain as positioning itself between

Scandinavia and the US, both politically and economically, and seeking a ‘middle way’ in

policy terms.7 Others argue Britain and the US were determined in 1948-49 to draw

Scandinavia – or at the least Norway and Denmark and their Atlantic territories – away

from neutrality and into the Cold War.8 Much attention given in these studies to a strategy

developed in the British Foreign Office (FO) Northern Department, commonly called the

Hankey plan, designed to link a Scandinavian defence alliance with the North Atlantic

security group, but without involving neutralist Sweden in full-scale commitments. A basic

assumption is made that Britain saw the defence of Scandinavia to be a vital interest, and

was motivated by fear of a Soviet invasion of the region.9

This article will revise these interpretations of British policy. It approaches the issue

of Scandinavian involvement in the North Atlantic alliance as an issue in an internal British

debate about the nature of the enterprise on which they were embarked. It will demonstrate

that assumptions by Scandinavians that they were unequivocally wanted in the Atlantic

pact, were not universally true across the British government.10

It will show that contrary to

4 Karl Molin, ‘Winning the Peace: Vision and Disappointment in Nordic Security Policy, 1945-49’ in Henrik

S. Nissen (ed), Scandinavia During the Second World War (Oslo: Universitatsforlaget, 1983), 361-4; Nikolaj

Petersen, ‘Danish and Norwegian Alliance Policies 1948-49: A Comparative Analysis’, Cooperation and

Conflict, xiv (1979), 199; Nikolaj Petersen, ‘Britain, Scandinavia and the North Atlantic Treaty 1948-49’,

Review of International Studies, viii (1982), 261. 5 Eric S. Einhorn, “The Reluctant Ally: Danish Security Policy 1945-49,” Journal of Contemporary History, x

(1975), 493-512. 6 Helge Pharo, ‘Scandinavia’, in David Reynolds (ed.), The Origins of the Cold War in Europe: International

Perspectives (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 194-223. 7 Rasmus Mariager. ‘Political Ambitions and Economic Realities: Anglo-Danish Relations and the US in the

Early Cold War’, in Jørgen Sevaldsen, Bo Bjørke and Claus Bjørn (eds), Britain and Denmark: Political,

Economic and Cultural Relations in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculaneum Press,

2002), 537-8. 8 Clive Archer, ‘Uncertain Trust. The British-Norwegian Defence Relationship’, Forsvarsstudier ii (1989);

Jussi Hanhimaki, Scandinavia and the United States. An Insecure Friendship (New York: Twayne, 1997), 10-

69. 9 Patrick Salmon, ‘Great Britain, Scandinavia and the Origins of the Cold War 1945-49’, in Gunilla Anderman

and Christine Baner (eds), Proceedings of the Tenth Biennial Conference of the British Association of

Scandinavian Studies (Guildford: University of Surrey, 1995), 130; Magne Skodvin, ‘Nordic or North Atlantic

Alliance? The Postwar Scandinavian Security Debate’, Forsvarsstudier iii (1990), 13. 10

Olav Riste, Norway’s Foreign Relations – A History (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 2001), 197; Olav Riste,

‘Was 1949 a Turning Point? Norway and the Western Powers 1947-1950’, in Olav Riste (ed), Western

Security: the Formative Years. European and Atlantic Defence 1947-1953 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1985),

137.

4

the way it tends to be presented in conventional narratives, especially Bevincentric ones,

there was no consensus across the government. Probably the most influential figure on

British handling of the Scandinavian issue was not Bevin, but a man seldom featuring in

any of the accounts of NATO’s foundation, Sir Laurence Collier, the British Ambassador at

Oslo.

Accounts of the US road to the North Atlantic Treaty highlight the debates within

the US government and Congress. The literature on Scandinavia’s relationship with the

west likewise focuses on internal political differences as well as deep divisions between the

Nordic powers. In contrast, analysis of British policy in this period has been more

preoccupied with Bevin himself, and his aims regarding Britain’s world role, in relation to

ideas of a ‘third force’ based on Western Europe and the colonial empires. Accounts of the

British contribution to the creation of NATO say much about the way the British responded

to their information about these internal debates elsewhere, and less about any fundamental

areas of divergence within the British government.11

Where differences are noted, the

implication is that consensus was easily reached, because of commitment to the pragmatic

achievement of the overall goal of a formal alliance with the US. Analysis of the

Scandinavian issue in British policy debates shows that this conveys a mistaken impression,

and overlooks the way British policy was affected by internal disagreements that were not

easily resolved. The nexus of debate was between the views most strongly held by Collier

on the one hand, and the military Chiefs of Staff (COS) on the other. It shows that short-

term imperatives based on financial limitations were key factors in the debate that were not

simply set aside in favour of longer-term geopolitical objectives.12

British policy wound up

an uneasy compromise between the two. This puts the Hankey plan in a new perspective, as

a compromise not only between different attitudes in the Nordic countries but also as a

compromise of internal British viewpoints.

The British dilemma

In 1947, the British government faced serious economic problems as a consequence of the

Second World War. Britain had lost almost a quarter of its pre-war wealth. The destruction

of productive capacity and the need for reconversion of what was left for peacetime

production, the liquidation of overseas assets and the loss of export markets meant a

shortage of foreign currency. Overseas debts had risen sevenfold. This put a premium on

exports, which necessitated a domestic policy of austerity and continued rationing. This

situation was aggravated by the terms of the American loan approved by Congress on 15

July 1946, which required sterling to be freely convertible in mid-1947. World commodity

shortages pushed up prices of western hemisphere products. This reduced the real value of

the loan and meant that it was effectively exhausted by the end of 1947. Before then. the

harsh winter of 1946-47 had precipitated an economic crisis, with fuel shortages cutting

production and increasing the dollar gap. There was intense debate within the Cabinet as to

whether in this situation Britain could afford to maintain its extensive overseas

commitments. These derived not only from its empire (the cost of forces in India and Egypt

11

Alan Bullock, Ernest Bevin. Foreign Secretary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 840; Baylis,

Diplomacy, 129-30; Peter Weiler, ‘Britain and the First Cold War: Revisionist Beginnings’, Twentieth Century

British History, ix (1998), 131-5; John W. Young, Britain, France and the Unity of Europe (Leicester:

Leicester University Press, 1984), 14; John Kent and John W. Young, ‘British Policy Overseas: The ‘Third

Force’ and the Origins of NATO – in Search of a New Perspective,’ in B. Heuser & R. O’Neill (ed), Securing

Peace in Europe, 1945-62 (London: Macmillan, 1992), 41-6. 12

Cf Nikolaj Petersen, ‘Bargaining Power Among Potential Allies: Negotiating the North Atlantic Treaty

1948-49’, Review of International Studies xii (1986), 200; Jan Melissen and Bert Zeeman, ‘Britain and

Western Europe, 1945-51: Opportunities Lost?’, International Affairs, lxiii (1987), 83.

5

produced debts of £335 million), but also from its duties as one of the victorious powers,

such as the administration of occupation zones in Germany and Austria. In 1947, the cost of

the occupation of Britain’s zone in Germany approached £130 million. Bevin believed that

Britain should do so, and moreover argued that he needed credible military strength to back

up his foreign policy, especially with growing discord with the USSR in many areas.

Conversely, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hugh Dalton, argued that Britain’s economic

recovery took precedence, and sought to cut occupation costs and overseas defence

activities as much as possible. A start was made with the cuts to aid to Greece and Turkey

in February 1947, which resulted in the US announcement of the Truman Doctrine. In

April, Bevin warned Marshall that the burden of British commitments was ‘proving almost

more than we can bear.’13

Britain’s defence dilemma was therefore to find a way of maintaining the credibility

of British power, as well as the actual ability to act where British interests required it, within

the limited means available as a result of the financial crisis – a crisis which worsened

through the course of 1947 and which US aid provided through the Marshall Plan would

only resolve in the longer-term. The task of the British military leaders – the three Chiefs of

Staff – was to develop a plausible imperial and national defence strategy within these

budgetary constraints. They found it a virtually impossible task, but under repeated pressure

from Prime Minister Clement Attlee, Dalton and Minister of Defence A. V. Alexander, they

developed a strategic concept based on a pared-down view of Britain’s vital interests. These

were defined in mid-1947 as consisting of three pillars: defence of the United Kingdom

itself, defence of sea communications to the empire and the United States, and defence of

the Middle East.14

The defence of the United Kingdom against an attack by the USSR (the only

potential enemy considered) required some defence in depth on the continent of Europe.

However, partly as a result of the financial constraints, but partly too as a result of the

lessons they drew from the Battle of Britain, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force chiefs,

Admiral John Cunningham and Air Marshal Arthur Tedder, succeeded in getting the COS

committee, against misgivings by Army chief Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, to agree

that Britain could defend itself, so long as none of its strength had been sacrificed in the

defence of Western Europe. There would be ‘no more Dunkirks’.15

Even with this proviso, it was recognised that the only plausible solution to Britain’s

defence dilemma, if withdrawal from its global role was not to be considered an option, was

to get the US to commit itself to fulfil some of the military duties that the British did not

wish (or could not afford) to undertake, such as the despatch of large-scale reinforcements

to Europe in the event of war. This became a prime aim of British policy from the start of

1947 onwards, and dovetailed with developing concerns on the part of Bevin with regard to

the security of Western Europe in the second half of 1947.

The perceived threat to Western Europe came from the actions of the USSR, which

were considered increasingly menacing. While direct military action by the USSR could not

be entirely ruled out, it was believed that it was following more indirect, though no less

threatening, methods. The Soviet Government had rejected participation in Marshall Aid,

13

Bevin to Dalton 24 April 1947 FO800/514; Sean Greenwood, Britain and the Cold War 1945-91 (London:

Macmillan, 2000), 32, 42, 46, 53-4; David Kynaston, Austerity Britain (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), 133-6. 14

DO(47)44 Future Defence Policy 22 May 1947 CAB[inet papers, United Kingdom National Archives

(hereafter TNA), Kew] 21/1800; Anthony Gorst, “Facing Facts? The Labour Government and Defence Policy

1945-1950’ in Nick Tiratsoo (ed), The Attlee Years (London: Pinter, 1991), 194-7. 15

DO(47)68 15 September 1947 CAB131/4; Elisabeth Barker, The British Between the Superpowers (London:

Macmillan, 1983), 98-102.

6

and had prevented the states in Eastern Europe that it controlled from doing so. Soviet

policy was interpreted in Washington and London to be one of obstruction: of both

European economic recovery and of the political settlement of issues outstanding from the

Second World War, initially with regard to Germany. Soviet negotiators appeared to be

deliberately procrastinating, and both Bevin and Marshall concluded before the London

Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in November 1947 that if this continued then there

was no point in maintaining the appearance of cooperation and consultation. The Soviets,

they thought, were stalling in the hopes of European economic collapse, which would

enable domestic communist parties to seize power. Marshall therefore brought the London

meeting to a premature close on 17 December, when it became clear that Soviet Foreign

Minister Vyacheslav Molotov had not come with the intention of reaching agreement on

any of the outstanding issues. This was to be the last of the regular scheduled meetings of

the Council.

The foundation of Cominform in September and a wave of communist-inspired

industrial action in Western Europe convinced Bevin and Marshall that the Soviet aim was

to undermine European economic recovery by subversion. Devastated, and socially and

politically dislocated by the experiences of the war, European states were seen to be

vulnerable to such tactics, and in need of an increased sense of security to give them the

confidence to achieve economic recovery and to resist the propaganda of their own

communists. The Western Europeans looked to Britain to provide reassurance, and this only

intensified Britain’s own dilemma, as its defence strategy of ‘no continental commitment’

was not conducive to raising their spirits. Once again, a US commitment to participation in

the defence of Western Europe appeared to provide the answer. These issues were the

driving force for British initiatives following the collapse of the Council of Foreign

Ministers in December 1947, which led eventually to the formation of NATO.16

At the start of January 1948, Bevin set out to his Cabinet colleagues a vision of a

‘spiritual federation of the west,’ or ‘Western Union.’17

He followed this up with a speech

to the House of Commons on 22 January. While the specifics of the proposal were unclear,

the demonstration of initiative and leadership appealed to western Europeans, and their

responses quickly built up a momentum that culminated in the conclusion of the Brussels

Treaty on 17 March 1948, signed by Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and

Luxembourg. The treaty promised mutual cooperation and commitment to each other’s

defence. The USSR was not specifically named as the ostensible threat, though unlike the

Anglo-French Dunkirk treaty of a year earlier, Germany was not defined as the potential

enemy either.18

The treaty thus marked a vital stage in the movement away from alignments

based on the Second World War. On 25 February 1948 communists in Czechoslovakia had

engineered a coup, removing all pro-western elements from the Prague government. This

had shaken the French in particular, and made them ready to take bolder steps, as well as

giving the opportunity for the increased political marginalisation of their own communists.

The sense of insecurity in Western Europe that Bevin and Marshall had noted the previous

16

Don Cook, Forging the Alliance. NATO 1945 to 1950 (London: Secker and Warburg, 1989), 106-9. 17

CP(48)7 Review of Soviet Policy 5 Jan. 1948, CP(48)8 Future Foreign Publicity Policy 4 Jan. 1948,

CP(48)6 The First Aim of British Policy 4 Jan. 1948 CAB129/23; Bullock, Bevin, 519-20; Cook, Forging,

117. 18

The Treaty was closer in format to the 1947 Rio Treaty than it was to the Dunkirk Treaty, involving as it did

mutual assistance against any aggression. The Rio model had been suggested by State Department official

John D. Hickerson, though this may not have been decisive: with the Czechoslovak coup a focus on potential

German aggression seemed quite beside the point, and none of the parties was prepared to be so directly

provocative as to specifically mention the Soviet Union in this regard, quite apart from the domestic

difficulties it would have provoked among centre-left opinion, Cook, Forging, 122.

7

year, however, was naturally increased by the events in Czechoslovakia, a state which had

seemed to straddle east and west. This accentuated the tendency of the continental European

members of the Brussels pact to wish to address issues of defence immediately.

Bevin had always understood that what the newspapers called the ‘Bevin Plan’ had a

defence dimension, but had sought from the moment that he unveiled his somewhat

inchoate plan to Cabinet to cover this angle by getting a guarantee from the Americans that

they would underwrite the defence of Western Europe.19

The Americans had resisted his

attempts to get a firm public commitment, partly for domestic reasons, and partly because

they saw the Bevin plan as a step towards the integration of Western Europe, which they

regarded as the long-term solution to its economic and political problems. They wished to

avoid any American participation that might harm this movement. Bevin, however, always

considered a security guarantee from the US to be vital, both to provide Europeans with a

sense of security, but also in order to prevent Britain from being drawn to commit its own

scarce defence resources to a continental strategy.20

This became urgent for Britain because

even before the Brussels Treaty was concluded, the Europeans had raised the issue of

defence. The COS, however, had recently reaffirmed that they would not send any forces to

defend Western Europe should it be attacked.21

The quest for an American commitment to

do so became imperative as a consequence.

The communist seizure of power in Prague prompted Bevin to put the issue to the

Americans again. On 25 and 26 February, immediately after the coup, he painted the

situation in dramatic terms to United States Ambassador Lewis Douglas, saying that the

next six to eight weeks would be crucial to the west.22

He stressed to Douglas that it was

vital to have discussions on defence issues, involving France, Britain and the Benelux

countries, and that they take place in Washington. Bevin received no direct response.23

On 3

March he presented to Cabinet an alarmist paper outlining the dangers of the Soviet attempt

to spread Communism.24

He remained convinced that the key to all the inter-connected

problems of European economic recovery, security against communist subversion such as

had been deployed in Czechoslovakia and Britain’s own defence dilemma, was a US

security commitment in a form more substantial than a presidential declaration. The

problem facing the British was how to move the Americans to enter into such a

commitment. The lack of response to Bevin’s pleas to Douglas showed that even the Czech

coup, which had been a profound shock both sides of the Atlantic, was not sufficient to do

this. A much less dramatic development, however, proved to be the trigger the British were

looking for.

Lange’s appeal to the West

Late on March 8 1948, Halvard Lange informed Collier and the US ambassador, Ulrich

Bay, that he had heard rumours from three sources that the Soviet Government was about to

put pressure on Norway to agree a non-aggression pact. Lange said his government intended

to refuse, but wished to know what support it could expect if Stalin responded in a hostile

19

FO to Inverchapel 13 Jan., Inverchapel to Bevin 19 Jan. 1948 F[oreign]O[ffice General Correspondence,

TNA] 371/73045/Z273, Z480. 20

Martin H. Folly, ‘Breaking the Vicious Circle: Britain, the United States and the Genesis of the North

Atlantic Treaty’, Diplomatic History xii (1988), 62-5. 21

COS(48)18th mtg 4 Feb. 1948 DEFE[Defence Papers, TNA]4/10, COS(48)59(O) 18 March DEFE 5/10;

Barker, British Between, 131-2, Martin H. Folly, ‘The British Military and the Making of the North Atlantic

Treaty’, in Joseph Smith (ed), The Origins of NATO (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1990), 55. 22

Bevin conversation with Douglas 26 Feb. 1948 FO371/73067/Z2642. 23

Douglas to Lovett 26 Feb. 1948 Foreign Relations of the United States 1948: III [hereafter FRUS1948: III],

32-33. 24

CP(48)72 The Threat to Western Civilisation 3 March 1948 CAB129/25.

8

fashion to this rebuff.25

The conventional narrative of the history of the foundation of

NATO traces a direct line of causation from this point to the signature of the North Atlantic

Treaty on April 4 1949.26

One of the notable aspects of the 8 March ‘crisis’ is that no panic is evident in either

London or Washington. This has tended to be obscured by the language Bevin used to try

and get action from Marshall: his phrase ‘imminent threat to Norway’ is often quoted: some

narratives of NATO’s foundation even suggest that a Soviet invasion of Norway was

expected.27

Yet the FO papers show no expectation of any Soviet movement against

Norway. From the start the indefinite nature of what Lange had said to Collier was evident,

and the rumours were quickly seen to be without foundation. The main issue was how to

answer Lange, rather than deal with the Soviets. Moreover, the State Department appeared

even less concerned: the British ambassador, Lord Inverchapel, reported from Washington

that they did not initially seem to think Lange needed any answer at all.28

However, Bevin saw an opportunity to make progress on the larger issue of US

commitment to European security, and asked Marshall for immediate talks on a security

pact for the North Atlantic. His quest for an American security guarantee predated both

Lange’s demarche and the Czech coup. It had been intended more as a precondition for

movement to Western Union than as a consequence of it. The ‘North Atlantic’ angle was a

new one, but otherwise in his plea to Marshall he was repeating earlier attempts to get the

Americans to commit themselves to the defence of Western Europe.29

Collier’s report also prompted an assessment of the place of Scandinavia in what

was already being called the ‘cold war’. The significance of Lange’s queries was that they

needed to be answered in such a way that Norwegian morale, and readiness to risk a hostile

Soviet reaction, were not affected by the discouraging truth that neither power had plans to

defend Norway. Similar unofficial requests made earlier by Defence Minister Jens Christian

Hauge to service attachés had received only evasive answers: addressing them officially

through ambassadors made it harder to pretend the questions had not been asked, especially

with the hint of imminent Soviet demands added into the mix. 30

It was thus not Soviet

pressure that was the impetus for action – there was no Soviet pressure – but concern that

Norway should not lose its nerve. Thus it was that, although the reaction with regard to an

external threat to Norway was indeed calm, other British documents – letters from Attlee to

Commonwealth leaders and FO briefing for Bevin’s forthcoming discussions in Paris with

25

Bay to Marshall 8 Mar., 9 Mar. 1948 Record Group 59, US National Archives, 857.20/3-848, /3-948;

Collier to FO 104 8 Mar. 1948 FO371/71504/N2710 (despatched 10.23 pm). Lange went much further with

Collier than with Bay, in specifically requesting what help Britain would provide if Norway was attacked as a

result of refusing a Soviet demand for a non-aggression pact. 26

This is the account given on NATO’s own website, http://www.nato.int/archives/1st5years/chapters/1.htm,

citing Lord Ismay, NATO, The First Five Years (Paris: NATO, 1955); Cook, Forging, 125; Riste, ‘Was 1949 a

Turning Point?’, 139. 27

Richard Best, Cooperation With Like-Minded Peoples (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1986), 163; Rolf

Tamnes, ‘The Strategic Importance of the High North During the Cold War’, in Gustav Schmidt (ed), A

History of NATO: The First Fifty Years (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001) vol. 3, 258; Geir Lundestad, America,

Scandinavia and the Cold War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 178-81; Patrick Salmon, ‘Great

Britain and Northern Europe from the Second World War to the Cold War’, in Robert Bohn and Jurgen Elvert

(eds), Kriegsende im Norden. Vom Hießen zum Kalten Krieg (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1995), 201. 28

Inverchapel to FO 10 March 1948 FO371/71504/N2912. 29

FO to Inverchapel 10 March 1948 FO371/71458/N3001; Inverchapel memo 11 March, Marshall to Truman

and to Inverchapel 12 March 1948 FRUS1948: III, 46-9. 30

Collier to FO 15 Jan. 1948 FO371/71449/N637; Bay to Marshall 19 Feb. 1948 FRUS1948: III, 24ff; Collier

despatch 8 March 1948 FO371/71450/N2775; Riste, ‘Was 1949 a Turning Point?’, 139.

9

the Scandinavian foreign ministers – took a serious view of the situation.31

Scandinavia in post-war British defence planning

British planning after the end of the Second World War assumed that Norway was

important for Britain’s own defence, for an enemy controlling Norway’s coastline could

interdict Britain’s access to the Atlantic sea-lanes. Denmark was also seen as important

because of its position at the entrance to the Baltic, its possession of Greenland, and close

connections to Iceland. These latter territories were recognised to be of vital interest to the

US as outliers of western hemisphere defence and as ‘stepping stones’ both in the provision

of aid to Britain and in launching a strategic air offensive against the USSR. Sweden played

a much less significant role in these direct strategic terms, but its position and policy were

seen to be the keystone of the whole area. The problem was that while Norway and

Denmark were regarded as strategically important, they were seen to be very weak.

Moreover, with the tight fiscal constraints, the necessity for prioritisation meant that little, if

any, force could be spared to help them. Thus, while Norwegian defence planning was

based on an assumption that Britain would defend Norway, British planners had no

intention of doing so.32

Closer contingency planning seemed vital (a lesson drawn from the

experience of 1940), but would be counter-productive if it revealed this unpalatable fact to

the Norwegians.33

There was a way round this dilemma. Sweden was regarded as considerably

stronger, and if the three states could collaborate, they would feel stronger and the very act

of coordination might well deter the Soviets. Back in early 1947, this matter had been

debated extensively in Whitehall and with the ambassadors at Oslo (Collier), Stockholm

(Sir Bertrand Jerram) and Copenhagen (Alec Randall). Over the next two years, the British

government contained within it a wide spectrum of opinions on this vital question. It would

be misleading to imply, therefore, that Britain unambiguously and consistently sought to

pull Norway and Denmark away from a Scandinavian pact and into NATO.34

Collier stood

at one extreme, and occupied an influential position in Oslo throughout this period. At the

other end were the COS, whose approach to Scandinavian coordination and neutrality was

based on radically different premises. The FO Northern Department and other interested

departments, the other ambassadors, and Bevin himself, moved between the two positions.

This produced a policy kept fluid by the conflicting imperatives of the British defence

position right through to March 1949.

Sir Laurence Collier was highly experienced in the matter of British relations with

Scandinavia, having been head of the Northern Department for ten years before being

appointed ambassador to the Norwegian government-in-exile in 1941. He had a record of

voicing his views vigorously, even when they went against office wisdom.35

He had written

on 19 December 1946 that it was better for British interests if Norway and Denmark did not

get engaged in defence coordination with Sweden, for if they did so, they would catch the

infection of appeasement, ‘Sweden’s usual policy towards her strongest neighbour.’ It

31

Commonwealth Relations Office to UK High Commissions 9 March 1948, Attlee to Mackenzie King 10

March 1948 [Prime Minister Private Office Papers, TNA] PREM8/788; FO brief 11 March 1948

FO371/71451/N3336; Bevin meeting with Naval Staff 12 March 1948 FO371/71447/N3309. 32

Olav Riste, ‘NATO, the Northern Flank, and the Neutrals’ in Schmidt, History of NATO vol. 3, 243. 33

COS(48)18th mtg 4 Feb. 1948 DEFE4/10, Stapleton to Sargent 28 Feb. 1948 FO371/71447/N2471,

COS(48)42nd mtg 19 March 1948 DEFE4/11. The Danes expected no help, which made them particularly

anxious to form a defence arrangement with Sweden. 34

Cf Petersen, ‘Britain, Scandinavia’, 259. 35

Donald Lammers, ‘Fascism, Communism and the Foreign Office, 1937-39’, Journal of Contemporary

History, vi (1971), 68, 76-7.

10

would be better, Collier argued, for the two countries to integrate their defences with those

of Britain.36

This was to remain Collier’s firm view, and is the key to understanding his

interpretation of Norwegian policy to Whitehall. Collier’s counterparts in Copenhagen and

Stockholm disagreed. Randall favoured a Scandinavian defence pact, and Jerram, though

more ambivalent on that, felt that Britain should encourage secret Scandinavian defence

contacts. Norway’s ‘sturdy courage’ might stiffen the Swedes.

37

FO officials agreed it might be best to encourage the three to strengthen their

defences by working together. Suspecting that Collier harboured anti-Swedish prejudices

that distorted his judgement, they doubted whether Sweden would appease the USSR to the

same degree that it did Germany: Russia was its traditional enemy.38

From the military point of view in 1947, a Scandinavian defence bloc seemed to

serve British strategic interests – and from this the COS were not to waver over the next two

years. The Joint Planning Staff (JPS) view was that unfortunately the Scandinavians would

be reluctant to form such a bloc, through fear of Soviet responses, unless given guarantees

of military assistance from the western powers.39

Similarly, Randall warned that any

pressure from Britain to develop a defence bloc would produce a demand to know what

Britain and the US would do to assist it in the event of a Soviet reaction.40

British lack of

resources, and US resistance to making commitments of this sort, meant it was best to

prevent such questions being asked, for the discouraging answers would make the situation

worse.

Clandestine contacts developed between individual Scandinavian officers, but

without official government sanction.41

The Danes were most enthusiastic for Scandinavian

cooperation, believing that Denmark would be an early target if the USSR embarked on

aggression in Europe.42

Norway shared much of this feeling of vulnerability, but antipathy

to Sweden, and the experience of the Second World War, inclined them to prefer defence

cooperation with the west, if Britain and the United States were prepared to offer the

necessary guarantees. Neither, at the end of 1947 was yet prepared to do so, despite their

recognition of Norway’s strategic significance.

There were two potential dangers inherent in this situation in British minds at the

start of 1948. One was the possibility stressed by Collier that Sweden would lead

Scandinavia into neutrality, rendering any prior planning impossible. A second was the

internal political position in the three countries. These considerations were evident in

British actions after 8 March. They were not contingent on there being any substance to the

rumours of imminent Soviet demands. More important was that the Norwegians might

believe them true. They had to be reassured – and Lange’s specific questions about military

assistance determined what kind of form that reassurance needed to take. The Norwegian

government also, it was believed, needed to be prompted not to lose sight of the main

danger: they must not become obsessed with unlikely Soviet military moves, when the real

36

Collier despatch 19 Dec. 1946 FO371/65961/N127. During the Second World War, Collier argued that

Norway was so important to Britain that it should always be prepared to fight in Norway’s defence, Patrick

Salmon, Scandinavia and the Great Powers 1890-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 345. 37

Randall despatch 4 Feb., Jerram to Hankey 15 Feb. 1947 FO371/65961/N127, N2405. 38

Warr minute 11 Jan., Creswell minute 13 Jan., Warner minute 17 April 1947 FO371/65961/N127, N3398. 39

JP(47)56(F) 4 June 1947 Scandinavian Defence – Strategic Considerations, despatch to Randall 5 Aug.

1947 FO371/65961/N6750; COS(47)72nd meeting 9 June 1947 DEFE4/4. 40

Randall to Hankey 25 July 1947 FO371/65961/N8976. 41

Jerram to Hankey 31 Oct. and 5 Nov., Talbot minute 26 Nov. 1947 FO371/65961/N12910, N13454; Jukka

Nevakiki, ‘Scandinavian Talks on Military Cooperation in 1946-1947: A Prelude to the Decisions of 1948-

1949’, Cooperation and Conflict, xix (1984), 172-4. 42

Randall to Hankey 18 Dec. 1947 FO371/65961/N14705.

11

danger, as the communist actions in Czechoslovakia seemed to show, was internal. Covert

intelligence reports from Norway suggested that communist activity in factories,

organization for sabotage and caches of weapons formerly belonging to the resistance, were

far greater than the authorities seemed to realise, even though Prime Minister Einar

Gerhardsen had made a fierce speech on 29 February in the wake of the Czech coup calling

attention to a domestic communist threat.43

The speech apparently failed to satisfy Bevin,

for he continued to emphasise this issue, minuting ‘my information is that… the Communist

movement in Scandinavia is better organised than we realise.’ When he met Lange in Paris

on 15 March, he moved on from assuring him that Britain and the US were soon to meet to

discuss Atlantic security, to deliver a homily about the need to clamp down on subversives.

Indeed, Bevin declared Britain itself was implementing a discreet witch-hunt and he urged

Lange to ensure his government did the same. Of course, this was a way of diverting Lange

away from awkward questions about what would be done to aid Norwegian defence. But

this was a genuine concern of Bevin’s, and one on which he felt, from his own trade union

experience, uniquely qualified to give advice.44

The British soon discounted the rumours, but pressed the Americans for discussions

on the organisation of not only North Atlantic, but also West European, and Mediterranean

security. This clearly had little to do with the need to act quickly to save Norway from

Soviet assault. The threat to Norway in British eyes came internally, not externally.45

The

further danger was that Lange’s questions could expose British intention not to act to defend

Norway. Marshall’s positive response to Bevin’s plea led to top secret Anglo-American-

Canadian talks in the Pentagon at the end of March. They resulted in a paper recommending

the formation of a North Atlantic security group – but the American delegates insisted this

remain absolutely secret and that the paper should be regarded merely as a State Department

working paper. As it happened, considerable debate on the issue was to follow within the

US administration. The absence of a public agreement meant there was nothing from the

Pentagon talks that could serve the purpose of boosting Norwegian confidence, when Lange

had been led to expect something helpful from the consultations. Norway had long been

interested in defence coordination with Britain, and Lange was trailing the idea of a

‘Northern Defence Union’ involving Britain, in March and April 1948. He received no

encouragement from Britain on this either.46

Instead, the Norwegian government became

drawn into discussions on inter-Scandinavian coordination.47

The absence of a real US movement towards the early conclusion of an Atlantic pact

meant that the British for their part were drawn to consider how to ensure that the

Scandinavians worked together to improve their own sense of security, while not adopting

Sweden’s isolationist neutrality.48

The US Ambassador to Sweden, Freeman Matthews,

43

Kenney (embassy press-reader) minute 5 March 1948 FO337/117. 44

Note of Bevin views 8 March, Etherington-Smith minute 14 March 1948, Bevin minute, FO to Collier 15

March 1948 FO371/71450/N2839, N3134, N3184; Bevin conversations with Lange, Rasmussen and Undén

15-16 March 1948 FO800/460. 45

Henderson despatch 17 March 1948, Hankey minute 24 March 1948 FO371/71504/N3452, N3979. 46

Collier despatch 27 April 1948 FO337/118; Olav Riste, ‘The Reluctant European: Norway’s Attitude to

Military Integration, 1948-1950’, in Norbert Wiggershaus and Ronald G. Foerster (eds), The Western Security

Community 1948-50. Common Problems and Conflicting National Interests During the Foundation Phase of

the North Atlantic Alliance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 186-8; Einhorn, ‘Reluctant Ally’, 502;

Salmon, ‘Great Britain and Northern Europe’, 202; Riste, ‘Was 1949 a Turning Point?’, 132, 139. 47

JP(48)27 12 March 1948, COS(48)37th mtg 15 March 1948 DEFE4/11; Alexander to Hauge 7 April 1948:

the British answers are calculated in their vagueness FO371/71445/N4194; Grethe Vaernø, ‘Norway and the

Atlantic Alliance, 1948-1949’, NATO Review , xxix (June 1981), 20; Riste, Norway’s Foreign Relations, 200. 48

Bateman minutes 9 and 17 April 1948 FO371/71451/N4021.

12

was, like Collier in Oslo, a fierce critic of Swedish neutrality, and he urged the State

Department to put pressure on Sweden to come over fully into the western camp.49

The US

counsellor in Stockholm, Hugh Smith Cumming, told startled Swedish businessmen that in

the event of a war Swedish factories would be bombed out of existence to deny them to the

Soviets.50

The British did not like to apply such direct pressure, preferring to influence

Scandinavian policy by what Robin Hankey, the head of the FO Northern Department,

called ‘crafty diplomacy’, but which, in the following nine months was actually over-

complicated and predominantly reactive.51

It was, moreover, hamstrung by American

inaction. Despite the events in Czechoslovakia and Lange’s anxious pleas, there was little

public sign of urgency coming from Washington regarding the organization of North

Atlantic security. Although Bevin’s agitated predictions in March had proved unfounded,

the British were not happy with such leisurely progress. The problem was not the prospect

of further action by the USSR, but by Sweden.52

Exploration of the option of a Scandinavian regional solution

The matter was immediate because of what Hankey called a ‘new and more aggressive

formulation of Swedish neutrality.’53

Swedish Foreign Minister Östen Undén was

concerned that Norway was moving towards too definite an alignment with the western

powers. Across the region there was considerable attachment to the idea of

Scandinavianism. The Swedish government capitalised on these feelings, knowing that

politicians in the other two countries would find it inadvisable to be appearing to stand in

the way of increasing inter-Scandinavian cooperation. Gerhardsen was inclined to respond

positively, and Lange himself saw some merits in Scandinavian defence cooperation.54

At

the meeting of Scandinavian prime ministers in Stockholm on 9-10 May, Undén gained

agreement from Gerhardsen and Hans Hedtoft, Prime Minister of Denmark, to a

memorandum affirming that a Scandinavian Defence Union should be considered. It would

keep outside any other grouping and avoid involvement in a war between great powers.55

The Swedish proposal was disturbing to those Norwegians who looked for more explicit

military planning with Britain. These included Lange, Hauge and the influential Haakon

Lie, secretary of the Norwegian Labour party.56

They had close links in Whitehall – Hauge

had worked with the Special Operations Executive during the war – and had been

encouraged by Collier. The Norwegian defence establishment regarded the Swedes with

animosity, with bitter memories of Swedish cooperation with Germany during the

occupation of Norway from 1940 to 1945. Lange and Hauge threatened to resign when

Gerhardsen returned to Oslo, and he accordingly withdrew Norwegian agreement to the

Stockholm memorandum on 14 May. The Swedish initiative, however, had attracted many

49

Matthews to State Department 21 April and 5 May 1948 FRUS1948:III 97-98, 112-14. 50

Henderson (Stockholm) despatch 21 April 1948 FO371/71724/N534; Aalders, ‘Failure’, 139. 51

Cf Archer, ‘Uncertain Trust’, 14-16, Petersen, ‘Britain, Scandinavia’, 259. It has been argued that Labour

ministers were more accommodating of Swedish neutrality because of their affinity for Swedish social

democrats and their close relations with leading members of the Swedish government, Juhana Aunesluoma,

‘”Our Staunchest Friends and Allies in Europe”: Britain’s Special Relationship with Scandinavia, 1945-1953’

in Michael Hopkins, Michael Kandiah and Gillian Staerck (eds), Cold War Britain, 1945-1964. New

Perspectives (London: Palgrave, 2003), 68-9, 72-3. 52

Two Hankey minutes 8 May 1948 FO371/71452/N6194, N5347. 53

FO to Collier 12 May 1948, Randall to FO 15 May 1948 FO371/71445/ N5346, N5703; Etherington-Smith

minute 19 May 1948 FO371/71452/N5713. 54

Petersen, ‘Alliance Policies’, 197-8; Einhorn, ‘Reluctant Ally’, 502-5. 55

Petersen, ‘Alliance Policies’, 197; Farquhar despatch 13 May 1948 FO371/71724/N5801. 56

Lie was seen as an able anti-communist propagandist, and was fed material by the British, Kenney to

Information Policy Department 26 May 1948. FO1110/27/PR396.

13

Norwegian socialists, deeply distrustful of the United States, and appealed to a wide cross-

section of the public that was attached to the ideals of Scandinavianism. The Danes were

anxious to forge Scandinavian cooperation, fearful that immediate help in the event of a war

could only come from Sweden, not from the west, and in September, Hedtoft succeeded in

getting agreement to set up a Scandinavian Defence Committee to study the issues.57

The Swedish perspective was explained on 20 May by Ambassador Erik Boheman

to Sir Orme Sargent, the permanent under-secretary at the FO. Boheman said that if the

Soviets thought their enemies would not make use of Scandinavia as a base, they would

leave it alone. The western powers could not do anything for Scandinavia if it came to the

point of war, but Scandinavia could organise its own defence and offer serious resistance to

the Soviets.58

The Swedish belief that they had a policy that was acceptable to both east and

west was derided in the FO as unrealistic, and it was felt, as Harold Farquhar, the new

ambassador in Stockholm, remarked, ‘a cold douche for their complacency is … sadly

required.’59

However, the FO still rejected putting any pressure on Sweden, and continued

to believe the key to progress could only come from Washington. Instead of pressing

Sweden, the situation was used once more to urge action from the Americans. Bevin warned

Marshall on 1 June, ‘we must … keep in mind the danger that a ‘neutral’ Scandinavian

system will develop if the question of mutual support as between Western Europe and the

United States is left in the doldrums.’ 60

Progress on the idea of a North Atlantic pact had indeed stalled while the Pentagon

paper was further debated within the State Department. Behind the scenes, advocates of an

alliance set out to convince key congressional figures. Most important was leading

Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg, who was chairman of the Senate Committee on

Foreign Relations. In an election year, support from both parties was necessary if such a big

departure from American tradition was to be achieved. However, until this process

produced results, Collier reported that the absence of a statement of what support they could

expect was making it hard for Lange and Hauge to hold Norway’s position, let alone

prevent Denmark’s inclination to Scandinavianism setting up a momentum in public

opinion that would draw them both towards the Swedish solution.61

Marshall acknowledged

the situation, but rather lamely stated that since the US role was ‘not yet crystallized,’ it was

difficult for the US to influence the Scandinavians. Matthews’ heavy-handed attempts to

dissuade the Swedes from neutrality by threatening the withholding of supplies, were

stopped. The Americans thus at this point effectively had no Scandinavian policy.62

This

left the British to attempt to finesse the matter as best they could in the absence of the only

condition they thought would make a decisive difference.

The ‘Hankey Plan’

To deal with this situation, Robin Hankey fleshed out an idea that had been current in his

department for a while. The plan involved Norwegian and Danish membership of a North

57

Petersen, ‘Alliance Policies’, 197-9; FO to Collier 16 May 1948 FO371/71445/N5676. 58

Sargent conversation with Boheman 20 May, FO to Randall 27 May 1948 FO371/71724/N6148. 59

Farquhar despatch 27 May 1948 FO371/71724/N6319. Patrick Salmon suggests Sargent’s remarks had such

an effect on Undén: if so, the effect soon wore off, Salmon, ‘Britain and Northern Europe,’ 202. 60

Jebb minute 28 May 1948, FO to Balfour 1 June 1948 FO371/73070/Z4394, Z4467. Bevin to Marshall 1

June 1948 FRUS1948: III 136-8. 61

Collier to FO 2 June, Randall to FO 3 and 15 June 1948 FO371/71445/N6478, N6792, N7020. 62

Marshall memo to Truman on Swedish neutrality 3 June, Marshall to Matthews 10 June 1948 FRUS1948:

III 134-5; Bevin minute 19 June, Bevin conversation with Boheman 18 June 1948 FO371/71725/N7091,

N7108; 4th Washington meeting 8 July 1948 FO800/453; Jebb memo on Washington talks July 1948

FO371/73074/Z6140.

14

Atlantic pact, simultaneous with their membership of a defence union with Sweden. The

three Scandinavian countries would be bound by pledges of mutual assistance in time of

attack, joint planning and standardisation of arms, but Sweden would only be required to

take action if Norway or Denmark were themselves attacked, remaining neutral if they went

to war as a result of their obligations to other North Atlantic pact members. It was necessary

to recognise, Hankey told Frances Willis of the US embassy, that the attachment of the

Scandinavian powers to any Western Union or Atlantic Union would have to be allowed to

shade off gradually as one got further eastwards.63

This idea of graded membership of the

alliance had some appeal, for otherwise those outside the bloc might be regarded by the

Soviets as of no interest to the western powers. Under a scheme such as this a hard division

of Europe would be avoided. It would be useful in accommodating states like Greece,

Turkey, Austria, and maybe Finland and Yugoslavia as well – advocates of this approach,

who included, in a slightly different form, George Kennan in the State Department, hoped

that by not formalising the blocs too rigidly, some states that were within the Soviet orbit

might be drawn away from it in time, notably Finland. 64

This approach, Hankey hoped, would be less likely to provoke the Soviets to tighten

up their control of the intermediate areas, such as Finland, than would a direct alliance of

Sweden with the Atlantic pact. It would give Norway and Denmark all they would really

need from Sweden. It would assuage Sweden’s fears that the Soviets would push for bases

in western Finland, were it to align with the US, while at the same time preventing a

Swedish lapse into full isolation.65

The plan was drawn up in order to be able to influence

the Scandinavian discussions in the direction the British preferred, though the FO never

came to a decision as to the opportune moment to put it forward. It became the subject of

rumour and of unofficial debate with the State Department and the Norwegians.66

It also,

however, came to serve a different purpose within the British government’s own debate,

offering a compromise between the diplomats and the military, as we will see.

In the United States, the discussions with Vandenberg had borne fruit. The senator

sponsored Senate Resolution 239, affirming support for US membership of a regional

security pact in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations Charter. The resolution

was approved by the Senate on 11 July, a process undoubtedly aided by the Soviet closure

of western access to Berlin on 24 June, precipitating a crisis that lasted until May 1949. The

Vandenberg Resolution freed the hands of the administration to enter negotiations, and

these began in Washington, involving the ambassadors of Canada and the five Brussels

treaty powers, together with Robert Lovett, under-secretary of state. Initial progress was

slow, as the Americans did not in any way regard themselves as bound by the Pentagon

paper, and the North Atlantic concept was a new one to all the Europeans, except the

British. France and Belgium disliked it on the grounds that it threatened to draw resources

to the flanks. They feared that Norway, Iceland and Greenland might prove of more interest

to the US than the defence of the Rhine.67

Real progress was made only when a smaller

working group was set up, helped by the crisis atmosphere and sense of urgency engendered

by the continuing Soviet blockade of Berlin. After meeting throughout August, an updated

63

Hankey to Farquhar 9 Aug. 1948 FO371/71725/N8874. 64

Alan K. Henrikson, ‘The Creation of the North Atlantic Alliance, 1948-1952’, Naval War College Review

xxxii (May-June 1980), 20; Vaernø, ‘Norway’, 19. 65

Hankey minute 23 July 1948 on telegram from Scott (Helsinki) FO371/71725/N8293; Hankey paper 6 Aug.

1948 FO371/71458/N8874. 66

Meeting of ambassadors and Bateman minute 22 Oct., Hankey to Randall 22 Nov., Hickerson to Hoyer

Millar 15 Nov. 1948 FO371/71454/N11864, N11090, N12412, N12618; Collier despatch 20 Oct. 1948

FO337/119; Petersen, ‘Britain, Scandinavia’, 261; Petersen, ‘Alliance Policies’, 207. 67

Foreign Ministers meeting 20 July 1948 PREM8/1431.

15

proposal for a North Atlantic pact was produced at the start of September for governments

to consider.68

The FO lectured its European allies that Norway and Denmark were of cardinal

importance, for a war might begin there, as it had before. They should therefore be included

in the pact.69

However, this was not a unanimous view in the British government. Rather

than following the FO’s lead, the COS now reiterated their different perspective on the

issue. Although the defence aspects of the North Atlantic pact idea were in essence long-

term, short-term military issues could not be kept out of the reckoning, for if the prime aim

of a boost to confidence and sense of security was to be achieved, the Europeans needed

their present anxieties about their strategic weakness assuaged.70

As we have seen, the very

act of beginning the process of cooperation had brought forth such questions: although the

British (and Americans) regarded them as untimely, the fact they had been posed meant the

issue was hard to ignore. Moreover, the crisis over Berlin, which carried the real possibility

that war would break out over the Anglo-American efforts to break the Soviet blockade of

the city by air, meant that these immediate issues loomed large in British military minds as

well. On 28 July, Montgomery reaffirmed that it was out of the question that Britain would

give any land assistance to Norway in event of war.71

‘A Necessary Adjunct’

However, for all the sense of crisis engendered by the confrontation over Berlin, the period

from September 1948 to January 1949 saw little decisive movement towards completion of

the North Atlantic Treaty. The working group had worked well, and produced a draft of a

treaty, in which two levels of membership were proposed, on 9 September. Norway,

Iceland, Denmark and Sweden were seen to be appropriate members, though it was unclear

whether their membership should be full or limited. There then followed a long pause.

Berlin tended to focus attention on immediate issues: plans for the future seemed less

germane when it seemed possible that, in the words of the COS, they would have to ‘fight

with what we’ve got.’72

The Brussels Treaty powers considered the draft treaty in a

leisurely fashion, and only in December produced instructions and a revised draft for their

ambassadors to put forward in Washington. In the United States, the general election meant

no progress was possible until November. After President Harry Truman won his surprise

re-election (and the Democrats regained control of the Senate), the State Department was

eager to move forward, but it was only on 24 December that the working group reported an

updated version of the treaty.

This slow – or non-existent - progress meant that the Scandinavian discussions

continued without outside pressure to reach a speedy conclusion. Indeed, even when the

State Department voiced a readiness to address the issue of Scandinavian membership, the

British held them back, preferring to see whether the talks could indeed produce a

compromise conclusion akin to the Hankey scenario. Scandinavian scholars have debated

the degree to which Norwegian participation in these talks was whole-hearted, or whether

they persisted simply to give the impression to their public opinion that they had tried, while

behind the scenes Lange worked to ensure the talks failed. British policy is portrayed as

allowing the talks to ‘blow themselves out’, in Nicholas Henderson’s words, while ensuring

68

Nicholas Henderson, The Birth of NATO (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982), 56-64. 69

FO to Franks 13 Aug. 1948 FO371/73074/N6278; Hankey to Hollis 2 Sept. 1948 FO371/71458/N8874. 70

COS(48)136th mtg 24 Sept., 137th mtg 25 Sept. 1948 DEFE4/16. 71

COS(48)106th mtg 28 July 1948 DEFE4/15. 72

COS(48)97th mtg 12 July 1948 DEFE4/14, and see also Defence Committee paper DO(48)55 19 Aug. 1948

CAB131/6.

16

the State Department did not impede this process by crudely applied pressure that might

prove counter-productive by seeming to be outside interference.73

A detailed look at the

British record, however, shows that during this three month hiatus period, the British view

of the place of Norway and Denmark in a North Atlantic pact was the subject of

considerable internal debate. With their minds focused by the Berlin crisis and the

inadequacy of Britain’s armed forces if it came to war, the British military reiterated their

support for a Scandinavian defence pact, and threw the FO’s assumptions into doubt. As a

consequence, they watched the Scandinavian talks with some hopes that a suitable solution

might emerge close to the lines of Hankey’s scenario, and did not simply await their

collapse with equanimity.

On 8 September the COS considered a report Short Term Strategic Aims in Europe

at the Outbreak of War, which recognised that the territorial integrity of Scandinavia was

important to the air defence of Great Britain and to allied shipping, but concluded its

defence was not as important as that of France and Benelux. The best that could be hoped

for was that Scandinavia stay neutral and be prepared to defend itself if attacked.74

On 10

September the vice-chiefs (VCOS) endorsed Hankey’s plan, but emphasised that the COS

would not contemplate giving any armed assistance to the Scandinavians. There was also

some risk that Norway and Denmark would look to Britain for equipment they ought to get

from Sweden.75

Military misgivings about the possible undertakings that would have to be made to

Norway and Denmark if they were in an Atlantic pact while Sweden was not, became more

evident over the next four months. A War Office note on the working group’s draft Atlantic

Pact proposal reiterated that Britain should not be committed to war in defence of countries

whose loss would not put it in mortal danger, nor disperse its forces to areas that were not

vital. Scandinavia was not in that category, though Iceland was. Britain should proceed by

bluffing and secret diplomacy, not public pacts. Norway and Denmark were unlikely in any

event to join any pact that did not offer direct military assistance.76

British policy-makers needed to resolve these conflicting aims and assumptions.

Hankey summarised the dilemma: either Norway, abetted by Britain, bring Sweden to agree

to a Scandinavian pact associated with the Atlantic pact, or Norway, in order to have any

security, would require armed assistance from the west on a scale impossible to provide.

‘There seems no doubt’, he told Sargent, ‘a Scandinavian Pact is a necessary adjunct to

association of Norway and Denmark with the Atlantic Pact.’77

Following a conference with

the three British ambassadors on 22 October, Hankey despairingly noted that Britain could

not avoid telling the Scandinavians what would be offered them if they joined the Atlantic

pact – that is, giving the direct, frank answer to the question Lange posed on 8 March,

which had consistently been avoided until then. But if this information did not make them

feel secure, as it probably would not, they would remain neutral and appease the Soviets.78

The JPS and COS remained sure that Scandinavia was indefensible without a

regional defence pact, though also holding that Swedish self-confidence was misplaced and

73

Henderson, Birth of NATO, 66-7; Salmon, ‘Britain and Northern Europe’, 202. 74

COS(48)200(O) 8 Sept. 1948 DEFE 5/12. 75

COS(48)126th mtg 10 Sept. 1948 DEFE4/16; Waterfield to Hankey 15 Sept. 1948 FO3671/71458/N10092. 76

War Office note on DO(48)64 ‘Atlantic Pact’ 28 Sept. 1948 DEFE11/19. The ‘vital areas’ included Eire,

Spain and Portugal but not Italy or Norway. At COS(48)139th mtg 29 Sept. 1948, it was conceded that

political reasons might make it necessary to include some countries to the east of this ‘stop-line’ DEFE4/16;

Price to Alexander 4 Oct. 1948 DEFE11/19. 77

Hankey minute 26 Oct., Hankey brief for Sargent discussion with Rasmussen 26 Oct. 1948 FO371/71454/

N11376, N11516. 78

Hankey to Waterfield 2 Nov., Hankey to Randall 22 Nov. 1948 FO371/71454/N11864, N12412.

17

that the pact would need some outside help.79

They felt the Norwegians needed to be aware

of the importance of defence cooperation with Sweden. Entry on their own into a North

Atlantic pact would expose to them the inability of Britain to come directly to their aid in

the event of war, and also reveal the main American interests in the region, which were their

mid-Atlantic territories, over-fly rights to attack the USSR and denial of resources to the

enemy. Alliance with Sweden would cover the issue of the defence of the mainland, thereby

rendering these uncomfortable facts secondary, so that they would not impede the

development of a Norwegian sense of security – and therefore firmness against internal

subversion.

The COS continued to seek alternatives to Norway and Denmark being members of

the Atlantic pact without Sweden. They asserted that a Scandinavian pact was of great

strategic importance.80

The JPS concluded that a communist-dominated Scandinavia would

not place the British Commonwealth in mortal danger. But certain strategic facilities made

the region important in a war with the USSR, and these at least would need to be denied to

the enemy. However, viewed from a military point of view, the FO’s gloomy view of the

potential of a neutral Scandinavian pact was misplaced. The JPS argued that if the three

countries followed a co-ordinated defence policy, they could be a valuable strategic asset,

for it would give them the ability to defend themselves. By contrast, the security offered to

them by a North Atlantic pact was principally its deterrent influence on the Soviets. The

British military saw Norway and Denmark as such a liability that they were in favour of it

even if Sweden insisted it was to be neutral and unconnected to the North Atlantic

arrangement. As far as the COS were concerned, it was best ‘to keep the cold war out of

Scandinavia.’81

In response to this, Hankey argued that Scandinavian neutrality would not be

respected by either side in a life-and-death struggle since it was on the bomber route to the

USSR. The Soviets would only be deterred by strength.82

The COS stuck to their guns,

however, noting on 3 January 1949 that it would not be wise to include Norway and

Denmark in the North Atlantic pact without Sweden. Scandinavian defence should be

treated as a whole. It is often claimed that the British fallback position should the Hankey

plan fail was Norwegian and Danish membership of the Atlantic Pact, but as far as the COS

were concerned the preferred alternative was a Scandinavian Defence Union.83

They were

probably strengthened in this view by the knowledge (from leaks) that the Swedish General

Staff was opposed to its government’s policy of neutrality.84

Talks resume in Washington – and end in Scandinavia.

The Washington talks resumed in January 1949. Once again, the small working group

functioned effectively and made good progress in gaining a consensus on the outstanding

issues. However, the US secretary of state, Dean Acheson, found when he reviewed the

state of negotiations, that much preparatory work needed to be done with congressmen. The

consensus informally reached in the working group could not, therefore be regarded as

settled at least until it was clear that it would be accepted in the Senate. In a sense,

79

COS(48)128 19 Oct. 1948 quoting JP(48)31 DEFE5/8. 80

COS(48)169th mtg 24 Nov. 1948 DEFE4/18. The VCOS complained about the high price some small

countries put on their membership COS(48)167th mtg 23 Nov. 1948 DEFE4/18. 81

JP(48)119 ‘Allied Strategic Facilities in Scandinavia’ 9 Dec., COS(48)181st mtg 17 Dec., COS(48)183rd

mtg 20 Dec. 1948 DEFE4/18. 82

Hankey to Price 30 Dec. 1948 COS(48)232 DEFE5/9; COS(49)3rd mtg 7 Jan. 1949 DEFE4/19. 83

COS(49)1st mtg 3 Jan. 1949 DEFE4/19, cf Petersen, ‘Britain, Scandinavia’, 259, Salmon, Scandinavia, 369. 84

Salmon, ‘Britain and Northern Europe’, 206.

18

therefore, at the end of January 1949, when Acheson began concerted work on this, the

negotiations became more fluid. At the same time, the inter-state negotiations moved up to

the ambassadorial level where they tended to be more contentious. The states involved

attempted, on what would be last opportunity, to press their particular concerns, such as the

French determination to secure the inclusion of the Algerian departments in the area

covered by the Treaty.85

Despite the time it had taken since the process had begun in the

wake of Lange’s comments to Bay and Collier in March 1948, and the continuing crisis

over Berlin, much still needed to be thrashed out and agreed by European governments and

American senators, as opposed to their representatives in the supportive and congenial

atmosphere of the working group. Fundamental questions, such as who should be members

of the pact, and when and on what basis they should join, took another six weeks to

resolve.86

The British ambassador at Washington, Oliver Franks, who had a close working

relationship with Acheson and was most sensitive to what senators would and would not

accept, played a key role in mediating these issues, but back in Whitehall, while there was

an acceptance of the need for pragmatic compromises, because of their enthusiasm for a

North Atlantic pact, the continuing imperatives of their defence dilemma meant these were

not just issues to be overlooked in the interest of concluding some form of pact. The same

considerations as before continued to play a role in producing a continuing uncertainty

regarding Scandinavian membership. Laurence Collier played a key role in determining the

outcome of the internal British debate in favour of Norwegian membership.

The issue of Scandinavian participation came to a head when Sweden produced a

definite proposal of a Scandinavian alliance at a meeting in Karlstad on 6 January, which

Norway provisionally accepted.87

Undén was convinced that Scandinavia could keep out of

a European conflict if their bloc was both neutral and strong – though in fact the Soviets

assumed any Scandinavian bloc would be pro-western.88

He feared that Soviet action in

Finland would be provoked were allied bases to be allowed on Scandinavian territory. He

refused therefore to entertain a compromise by which a neutrality provision would only

include the mainland, excluding the island territories, such as the Faeroes and Greenland.

Although the Swedish General Staff themselves had misgivings, these attitudes had

considerable support in Denmark. The Danes were conscious of their vulnerability, whether

an attack was launched in Scandinavia or in Central Europe. Denmark and Sweden, Foreign

Minister Gustav Rasmussen told Randall, were concerned that the west would do nothing if

they were overrun, and that membership of the Atlantic pact would provoke the Soviets. A

Swedish guarantee and supply of armaments was valued greatly.89

In the FO it was

commented that the Danes had ‘wobbled off the fence on the Swedish side.’90

Even after all these months, however, British policy in response was deeply

ambiguous. Hankey complained to Gunnar Hägglöff, the new Swedish ambassador, that it

was only the Swedes who thought that a Scandinavian bloc and association with the west

were mutually exclusive – he was clearly still hopeful of a ‘grading off eastwards’

solution.91

If only the pact was itself not neutral, that would serve Britain’s needs, Hankey

85

Michael Hopkins, Oliver Franks and the Truman Administration. Anglo-American Relations 1948-1952

(London: Frank Cass, 2003), 108-13; Cook, Forging, 208-19. 86

See in particular French Ambassador Georges Bonnet’s attempts to bargain Norwegian membership for

Italian membership, 13 Washington meeting 25 February 1949 FO800/455. 87

Einhorn, ‘Reluctant Ally’, 503-5. 88

Sven G. Holtsmark, ‘Enemy Springboard or Benevolent Buffer? Soviet Attitudes to Nordic Cooperation,

1920-1955’, Forsvarsstudier, vi (1992),73-6. 89

Randall to FO 11 Jan. and 13 Jan. 1949 FO371/77391/N391, N443. 90

Bateman minute 13 Jan. 1949 FO371/77391/N546. 91

Hankey conversation with Hägglöff 12 Jan. 1949 FO371/77392/N545.

19

noted, as they did not need much from Norway and Denmark, and without Sweden they

were a considerable liability. He therefore proposed a second plan, in which Norway and

Denmark would not actually be in the North Atlantic pact, but would make arrangements

with the US and Britain regarding the Faeroes and Greenland. In return for joint planning,

all three states would receive supplies. The potential drawback was that under Swedish

leadership they might be drawn into semi-isolation and drift into a ‘passive and weak-kneed

policy’ towards the Soviet Union.92

Collier’s interpretation of the Karlstad meeting was that Denmark hoped for such an

arrangement, and believed that Washington could be persuaded to alter the US policy to

provide no arms to nations that did not have reciprocal arrangements with them. Norway

went along with this to satisfy its own isolationists. Scandinavian public opinion, Collier

reported, was impressed by the Swedish offer. This was all in line with Collier’s oft-

repeated warnings that Sweden would draw Norway away from the west if it could.93

To

Collier, as he had been arguing since December 1946, the central fact to build on was a

Norwegian willingness to join the western powers: that, he said, was the only firm

foundation. As before, Collier disregarded military misgivings that Norway on its own

would be a liability. If Britain ‘held on to the substance rather than the shadow’ then the

Danes might be drawn back away from the Swedes, and Sweden perhaps would come to

realise the disadvantages of isolation. Hankey appreciated Collier’s viewpoint but still

preferred a system of interlocking arrangements, if possible, though he conceded that

Iceland would follow Norway and Denmark and it was very important to have Iceland in

the Atlantic pact.94

Hankey therefore outlined his plan once again, revised a little to embrace the new

realities in Scandinavia. If adopted, it would have set a sturdy precedent for the relationship

of NATO to the states on its periphery, and created a zone of gradation between the eastern

and western blocs. On 17 January, he recommended that Norway and Denmark indeed be

included in the Atlantic Pact, with the proposed Swedish guarantee to them only becoming

operative if they themselves were attacked. He saw two possible alternatives to this. One

was that Norway and Denmark should be in the Atlantic pact, with no connection to a

neutralist Sweden. Second, there was the option that emerged from Karlstad: a

Scandinavian pact, with Norway and Denmark unable to join the Atlantic pact, but making

certain arrangements with Britain and the US.95

Gladwyn Jebb, one of the keenest of the FO

officials for an Atlantic pact, agreed that it would be rash to ignore Sweden, for it was not

possible to give Norway and Denmark what they needed to secure their own defence. He

recommended the Karlstad option. Sargent, who had said little in this debate, although he

was the senior official in the FO, now intervened and ruled that this option was not to be

pursued. He preferred Norway and Denmark’s membership in the Atlantic pact, with

Sweden isolated.96

However, Foreign Office minister Hector McNeil was briefed that the

aim was to get Norwegian and Danish membership of the Atlantic pact by inducing the

Swedes to drop the requirement that they would have to be neutral in order to be in a

Scandinavian pact, so the link with Sweden was still a goal, and seemed a possibility, given

the views of the Swedish General Staff. Bevin, however, ruled that this all needed careful

92

Hankey minute 13 Jan. 1949 FO371/77391/N390. 93

Collier to FO 14 Jan. 1949 FO371/77391/N459. 94

Collier to FO 17 Jan., Hankey minute 20 Jan. 1949 FO371/77392/N551. 95

Hankey minute 17 Jan. 1949 FO371/77392/N687. 96

Jebb minute 17 Jan., Hankey note 19 Jan. 1949 FO371/77394/N1278.

20

consideration before taking it any further, with the practicalities of arms supplies much in

his mind.97

While the diplomatists dithered, the COS held to their line. They continued to favour

a separate neutral bloc if it was not possible to include all three in the Atlantic pact. Their

previous endorsement of the Hankey plan was, they said, given on the assumption that it

would be possible to associate Sweden with the Atlantic pact. For them, the primary aim

was that all three should stand together, so Collier’s enthusiasm for separating Norway from

Sweden was entirely misplaced. If they acted together, they would form ‘quite a formidable

military combination.’ Underlying these assertions, however, was the view of the COS that

these three countries, while important, were not absolutely vital to Britain’s survival, and

that therefore any commitment which would involve the use of already inadequate British

resources could not be justified on military grounds. They did add that it would be

‘embarrassing’ if the neutral bloc extended to cover the Faeroes and Iceland.98

British ambiguity was on the verge of being resolved in favour of this weighty and

decisive pronouncement. Hankey drafted instructions to Franks, saying that Norway and

Denmark without Sweden would be a strategic liability: the forces required to defend them,

without help from Sweden, would not be available for many years. Rather than try to draw

Norway and Denmark into the Atlantic pact, driving Sweden into isolation, Britain should

build on the Karlstad proposal, focusing on trying to move Sweden from its insistence that

Norway and Denmark cut themselves off from the west.99

Collier intervenes again

Collier, however, was as firm in his views as the COS. Before the message to Franks could

be sent, he weighed in again. Collier was determined to achieve Norwegian membership of

the western alliance, and not only was he prepared to accept Norwegian separation from

Sweden, he positively welcomed it. He condemned the Hankey plan, claiming (correctly)

that Norwegian opinion would not accept any Scandinavian pact that involved Norway in

obligations not shared by Sweden, for under the plan Norway would have to help the

western powers, while Sweden would not. Collier felt that Hauge suspected the plan was a

result of British belief that Norway was a liability. If Norway stayed out, Collier warned, it

would fall into the Swedish orbit, Lange might have to resign, and ‘our name would be

mud.’100

Collier’s trump card was his claim that the Norwegians were determined to enter the

Atlantic pact without an arrangement with Sweden. Weight of opinion shifted from the COS

view to that of Collier. The instructions to Franks were dropped and instead Hankey was

told to draft a Cabinet paper, favouring the entry of Norway and Denmark into the Atlantic

pact over Scandinavian neutrality. Swedish ‘obstinacy’ was blamed for the imminent

breakdown of the Scandinavian defence talks. Collier argued that a Norwegian decision in

favour of the Atlantic pact would be confused by further mention of interlocking pacts, so it

was decided not to approach them at all with regard to the need for help from Sweden.

Hankey returned to the argument that Sweden might lead them into appeasement, and,

rather illogically, speculated that Sweden might feel isolated when Norway and Denmark

97

Brief for McNeil 19 Jan. 1949, Bevin note FO371/77392/N687. 98

COS(49)10th mtg 19 Jan. 1949 DEFE4/19. 99

Draft telegram to Franks 21 Jan., Bevin and Alexander comments 22 Jan. 1949 FO371/77400/N1280. 100

Collier to Hankey 21 Jan., Hankey minute 22 Jan. 1949 FO371/77392/N684. Hankey asked Collier to

refrain from calling it the ‘Hankey plan’; clearly this caused him embarrassment with his superiors.

21

joined the Atlantic pact, and seek to make defence arrangements anyway.101

British

reservations remained, however, for Hankey’s immediate superior, Charles Bateman,

amended the paper to indicate that it was hoped Norway and Denmark would come in when

the ‘opportunity arrives,’ since it was clear that if an approach was made to them now, they

would immediately ask for a statement of what would be given to them, and a reply would

be extremely disappointing. British policy was still performing a frenzied dance around this

issue.102

British policy was not yet settled, however. On 27 January all three service chiefs

reaffirmed strongly that they favoured Scandinavian neutrality. The only condition was that

Iceland would not be included.103

They averred that if the Scandinavians united to deny the

region to an enemy, they stood a reasonable chance of success, given help in peacetime and

provided the Soviets were also fighting on the Rhine. It was conceded that even with a

neutral Scandinavian pact, Britain and the US would have to provide supplies, and would

want to use Greenland and the Faeroes, which would give the Soviets a casus belli against

the Scandinavians. However, in purely military terms, the judgement of the JPS, endorsed

by the COS, was that a neutral pact was preferable to having Norway and Denmark in the

Atlantic arrangement, unconnected to Sweden: the latter would mean that Britain would

have to give them arms ‘at the expense of our main strategic aims’ – and in any case,

successful Scandinavian defence, as earlier studies had established, depended on all three

states cooperating. They disliked the option of bringing Norway and Denmark into the

Atlantic pact as a first step, in the hopes that Sweden would feel isolated and follow.104

Response to further Soviet intervention

It was ostensibly an ill-judged Soviet action that moved this issue to resolution. On 29

January the USSR sent a note to the Norwegian government, pressuring it not to join an

Atlantic pact. Far from deterring the Norwegians, this enabled Lange to seize the initiative

in a manner reminiscent of March 1948.105

He indicated that an invitation to the

Washington talks would be well-received. However, this was actually as much a

consequence of the final breakdown of the Scandinavian talks as it was of Soviet pressure –

two abortive meetings in Copenhagen (22-24 January) and Oslo (29-30 January) failed to

remove Norwegian misgivings that the link to the west allowed in the Karlstad formula was

too narrow. It offered no certainty that the west would help Scandinavian defence, and the

Swedish assumption (and Danish hope) that US arms supplies would still be available to a

neutral bloc went against what Lange believed was American policy. Lange had already

indicated to the Norwegian public on 27 January that the North Atlantic pact option was

being considered: that is, before the issue of the Soviet note.106

Lange then made a high-

profile visit to Washington: though while there all he did was ask Acheson whether the

Americans preferred Norway in an Atlantic or in a Scandinavian arrangement – and if the

latter, what the position would be regarding the supply of munitions. All this achieved was

to reopen the issue, as Acheson then sought the views of the other negotiating powers.107

101

Hankey brief for Bevin 24 Jan. 1949 FO371/77393/N1150; draft Cabinet paper ‘Scandinavia and the

Atlantic Pact’ 26 Jan. 1949 FO371/77394/N1151. 102

Bateman minute 26 Jan. 1949 FO371/77394/N1151. 103

COS(49)13th mtg 7 Jan. 1949 DEFE4/19. 104

COS(49)40 ‘Scandinavian Defence and the Atlantic Pact’ 28 Jan. 1949 DEFE5/13. 105

Kaplan, NATO 1948, 207-9; FO to Franks 31 Jan. 1949 DEFE11/19. 106

Petersen, ‘Alliance Policies’, 206-7; Riste, Norway’s Foreign Relations, 202. 107

Franks to FO 8 Feb. 1949 FO371/77394/N1308. Lange raised the possibility, even after the defence talks

had stalled, of a Scandinavian pact that did not preclude agreements with the Atlantic powers over the

overseas dependent territories, and this attracted much interest in the ambassadors group when Acheson raised

22

The FO did not believe the Soviets would follow their note with hostilities, but

concluded that Denmark and Norway would be less vulnerable to such pressure if they

joined the talks. Franks therefore supported their membership of the pact in the

ambassadorial meeting on 8 February.108

Characteristically, a further reaction to the Soviet

note was concern that Norway should keep an eye on its own communists.109

The COS

acknowledged that the Soviet pressure changed matters: they were prepared to accept that

the Scandinavian question was now ‘part of the cold war.’ Tedder reiterated, even at this

juncture, their preference for a neutral Scandinavian pact, but he conceded that the military

balance between the options was narrow and political considerations might now tip the

balance the other way.110

However, the issue of whether Norway should be included in the talks and whether

it and other prospective members from outside Western Union should be founder-members

remained contentious issues in the final stage of the negotiation of the North Atlantic Treaty

in Washington in February and March 1949. British attitudes performed another flip. On 14

February, when Lange passed through London on his way home from Washington, Bevin

tried earnestly to persuade him not to press for immediate participation in the talks or

indeed membership of the pact.111

Apart from the long-standing obsession that British plans

not to fight in Norway must not be known to the Norwegians, the fear now was that the

small powers would raise issues that would delay matters, thereby exercising influence out

of proportion to their strength and status. The role the British had in mind for them was as

shelterers under the Anglo-American security umbrella, which they should accept in

whatever terms were offered. This is evident explicitly with reference to Italy, when the

British a number of times expressed the view that the Italians would ‘bedevil the

discussions’ by raising unwelcome issues and setting conditions for their membership.112

They were less negative about the Norwegians, but the underlying concern was the same.

Moreover, having the smaller powers accede after the treaty was signed would mean that

the initial defence discussions under the treaty would take place without them. This would

meet a crucial British requirement: to avoid the pact drawing Britain into extra defence

commitments. It would also keep the nature of the short-term strategy devised in the context

of the Berlin crisis from the smaller powers – that is, that some of them would be sacrificed

in strategic retreats.113

Lange was not prepared to go along with this British proposal, and may well have

been encouraged by Collier, who, blithely regardless of fluctuating views in Whitehall,

continued to press for Norway’s early inclusion in the talks themselves.114

A direct request

by the Norwegian ambassador at Washington, Wilhelm Morgenstierne, to join the

discussions, despite Bevin’s proposal to Lange, made it impossible to refuse. On 25

February, Acheson proposed to the ambassadors that Norway be invited, in response to

it, prompting enquiries back to the Permanent Commission of the Brussels Treaty, 12th Washington meeting 8

February 1949 FO800/455. 108

FO to Franks 1 Feb. 1949 FO371/77397/N1015; Brief for Bevin 3 Feb. 1949 FO371/77394/N1472; 12th

Washington meeting 8 February 1949 FO800/455. 109

Bateman minute 31 Jan. 1949 FO371/77397/N1083. 110

JP(49)14 Norway and the North Atlantic Pact, COS(49)21st mtg 9 Feb. 1949 DEFE4/19. 111

Bevin and Jebb conversation with Lange 14 Feb. 1949 FO371/77398/N1656. 112

Martin H. Folly, ‘Britain and the Issue of Italian membership of NATO, 1948-49’, Review of International

Studies, xiii (1987), 188-90. 113

FO to Franks 5 March 1949 FO371/79230/Z1959; COS(49)38th mtg 7 March 1949 DEFE4/20. 114

Collier to FO 25 Feb. 1949 FO371/77399/N1930; Lange returned from Washington convinced that a

Scandinavian pact separate from a western group could not count on political or military support, Riste, ‘Was

1949 a Turning Point?’, 133.

23

Morgenstierne’s application. The FO changed its mind and agreed that a Norwegian

representative should join the final talks, though pressing that he not be allowed to raise any

new points that might delay matters.115

France did not feel the same obligation to consider Norwegian sensitivities, and was

concerned to maintain its own centrality in the geographic coverage of the pact.116

After a

disputatious ambassadors meeting on 1 March in Washington accepted that Norway should

join the talks, on 3 March the Permanent Commission of the Brussels Pact, prompted by

France, said it preferred Norway should sign the treaty later, alongside other small powers,

so that they could have no influence on the text.117

The FO reversed itself again and

supported this, and Jebb explicitly acknowledged to Norwegian Ambassador Per Preben

Prebensen on 4 March that this was to avoid small powers raising questions that would

delay proceedings – that is, trying to have any input into the treaty they were going to be

asked to sign.118

Congressional sensitivities took precedence, however, and it was finally decided that

all proposed members be invited to sign at the same time as the principals, although only

Norway would have attended any of the talks. Bevin remarked to the Cabinet that Sweden

might well have been drawn in as well, if proceedings could have been ‘more leisurely’, but

he still preferred to put no pressure on Sweden to alter its stance, which had defaulted back

to isolation.119

The COS the day before had reiterated their preference for the Scandinavian

defence bloc that Sweden had failed to achieve – illustrating once more that the impetus for

the North Atlantic pact was political, not military.120

Conclusion

It is evident that the formation of British policy was a matter of considerable debate, and

that British concepts of western defence were a complex matter, shaped by Britain’s global

defence dilemmas. By analysing British policy on the issue of Scandinavia during the

genesis of the North Atlantic Treaty, this paper sheds fresh light on what has been described

as ‘the diplomacy of pragmatism’ conducted by Bevin and other British policy-makers as

they worked to create a workable post-war alliance to serve a multiplicity of British

interests. While Britain was a major driving force behind the formulation of the treaty, it

was not on the basis of a single vision of what was wanted or consensus on a ‘middle way’:

there was much internal debate and inconsistency as political considerations came into

conflict with military imperatives. British stances regarding a range of significant issues

cannot be understood if British policy is simply presented as a unitary whole. Bureaucratic

compromises between officials and planners made British input into the negotiations that

shaped the North Atlantic treaty more inconsistent and contradictory than is usually

acknowledged. Moreover, British pragmatism at times defaulted into indecision, leaving it

prone to hijacking by a person of unambiguous views, such as Laurence Collier in Oslo.

It would be wrong to assume, therefore, that British policy can be explained by a

simple formula. Rather than energetically and single-mindedly seeking a North Atlantic

pact that included Norway and Denmark – indeed was conceived in order to include them –

115

Etherington-Smith minute 28 Feb. 1949 FO371/77399/N1930; 13th Washington meeting 25 Feb. 1949

FO800/455; Jebb conversation with Italian ambassador 28 Feb. 1949 FO371/79229/Z1851. 116

Franks to FO 25 Feb. 1949 FO371/77399/N1931. 117

14th Washington meeting 1 March 1949 FO800/455; FO to Franks 3 March 1949 FO371/79230/Z1960. 118

Jebb conversation with Prebensen 4 March, FO to Collier 4 March 1949 FO371/77399/N2232, N2182. 119

Cabinet meeting CM(49)19th 8 March 1949 CAB125/15; Etherington-Smith note 8 March 1949

FO371/77399/N1985. 120

COS(49)38th mtg 7 March 1949 DEFE4/20.

24

and draw the Cold War demarcation line between east and west through the middle of the

Scandinavian peninsula, multiple British policy imperatives drew them to prefer a graded

system, in which Norway and Denmark were linked to the western system, but were

actually defended by arrangements with Sweden that would leave them half in and half out

of the western bloc. A Soviet attack on the region was not believed to be likely: the threat,

especially after the events in Czechoslovakia, was seen more to be Soviet subversion using

domestic communists. Such a half-and-half arrangement would, it was hoped give the

Scandinavians a better sense of security, and ability therefore to counter such a threat, than

exposure to the fact that the British did not, contrary to what most assumed, see the region

as so vital that it had to commit forces to its defence. Although the idea of graded

membership lost favour during the Washington discussions, analysing the Scandinavian

issue shows that the British continued to be attached to the concept up to the end of

February 1949, and indeed, the acceptance of Norwegian reservations about the placing of

NATO bases in Norway, meant that a degree of limited membership was actually

established – though it went nowhere near as far as the British had thought might be

preferable, if the consequence was a definite Swedish connection to the Scandinavian

members of NATO.121

Although Britain strongly desired the alliance for long-term

purposes, they tried where possible to shape it to meet their short-term needs. They could

not achieve this aim in this instance, because it simply did not fit the realities of the

situation, in terms of US congressional opinion, Swedish attitudes, relations between the

Nordic states, and Soviet policies. The result was that NATO, while it achieved the prime

goal of US involvement in the defence of Western Europe left other aspects of Britain’s

defence dilemma unresolved.

121

Aunesluoma, ‘Staunchest Friends’, 68. Bevin had misgivings about the consequences of the North Atlantic

pact butting right up against the Soviet bloc, minuting in February 1949, ‘It is clear now, I think, that we shall

get a reaction by Russia if there is any Pact with a country which touches their frontier’. This was the case, of

course, for Norway, which had a common frontier with the USSR itself, Bevin minute Feb 1949 (undated)

FO371/77403/N1387.